Praise for Boredom (February 26 Blog Carnival)
In an attempt to continue posting every week or two but give myself more time to mull the stuff I'm currently mulling, I decided to throw my hat in the ring (heh) for this month's Bear Blog Carnival topic: Boredom. Also in the interest of the very little time I now have due to school, I'm going to attempt to off the cuff this instead of my typical multi step process. Because of this it will likely be messy, or maybe that will make it extra fun in some new way and this will become another form of writing I publish here altogether. I guess I (we?) shall see.
What even is boredom?
As the title suggests, I am extremely pro-boredom; in claiming such I feel it's important to establish what boredom actually means to me. Or, at least what it means to me in the context of this post.
According to wikipedia boredom is
"an emotion characterized by uniterest in one's surroundings, often caused by the lack of distractions or occupations."
It's not to say that I'm a slothful person by nature that simply never gets quite to the point of unpleasantness. Quite the opposite. I think there is something worth embracing in the discomfort of boredom. Another way to think of it is that if you're never bored, you're always distracted.
I myself struggled with feeling bored for even a second. When I was diagnosed with Epilepsy and later Functional Neurologic Disorder, I had to step back and realize there were ways overwork had become a form of self-harm in my life. I think that sort of thing is more common than we'd like to admit in modern society, maybe especially in the United States -- I'm not worldly enough to know.
It's certainly too easy to be constantly occupied. Most of us are on Bear because we're well aware traditional social media is built around these very principles. The prevalence of concepts like Dopamine Fasting are probably part of why this prompt was chosen at all. Part of the original prompt asks if we are "even capable of feeling bored in this age of limitless digital entertainment", so I know overall this point is low hanging fruit.
My point in writing this at all then is to say being bored is still possible and talk about why I think it's an emotion worth sitting through from time to time.
What can boredom teach us
Looking back at the wikipedia definition, we generally have to be:
- unhappy with our surroundings
- out of distractions/sources of stimulation
to feel truly bored. So, sitting out on a hill and taking in the view isn't boring as long as you are happy with your surroundings and sufficiently stimulated.
How often is that the case anymore though, for any of us?
The threshold for stimulation, or maybe the need for distraction, keeps getting higher. When that's the case, we miss out entirely on a key component of what boredom is meant to be actually helping us recognize: when we're uncomfortable with our surroundings. And if we're never truly recognizing when we've become uncomfortable with our surroundings, or are ready to move to something new, we become more and more separated from why we personally feel that way in the first place.
All in all, allowing yourself to be truly bored can help you make more thorough assessments on which aspects of life can be tweaked to make the overall experience more enjoyable.
How to be bored
The first step to allowing yourself to experience boredom, and therefore it's benefits, is to recognize that it is in fact unpleasant. Go in with the knowledge you're trying to build up a tolerance for something that our devices, social media, what have you, are specifically designed to keep us from feeling.
Ask yourself, almost as a mantra: "if so much effort has been put into keeping me distracted, how much could I gain from letting myself be bored?"
Then, in the wise words of Hyukoh and Sunset Rollercoaster, Do Nothing.
This is easier said than done. There are certainly activities like meditation or journaling that invite moments of boredom laced with introspection. One of my favorite ways to low-dose boredom is to listen to a favorite album, and then sit in the silence of it.
If boredom feels impossible for you, begin accepting the small moments the universe provides, like a cat on your lap right as you were about to get up or an unexpected bumper-to-bumper commute, as divine invitations.
The biggest thing you can do is give yourself permission to try. It can genuinely be hard to do so. We're all pretty uncomfortable with our surroundings, for a bunch of reasons that are far out of our control. A big part of the overall unpleasantness comes from having to acknowledge that, in my opinion.
Decide it's worth it, sit with yourself, see what happens.\